Snowbrother (6 page)

"Ahi-a, let's see…" She ran her hands over the Minztan's bowl-cut black hair, down her shoulders, then undid the lacing of her shirt and trouser belt. The fingers kneaded and probed, half caress, half stockbreeder's appraisal.

"But I can't threaten you with what I'll do anyway, can I?" she said. "But this, now…"

She worked her thumbs into Maihu's armpits, felt for the nerve clusters, began to press.

The Minztan braced herself, her eyes seeming to turn a darker blue as the pupils contracted; she was preparing to ride out the pain with the withdrawal technique.

Shkai'ra shook her head and stepped back. "I hear," she said conversationally, "that you're called Maihu." She pointed to the boy. "That's Taimi. Your kinchild. Wombchild, too." She drew her knife and stood for a moment tapping the flat of her blade against her knuckles. At her nod Eh'rik surged erect and gripped Taimi by the upper arms, digging thumbs into his shoulderblades until his chest arched out painfully.

His lips quivered. Suddenly she turned and slashed. Maihu bit back a scream as Taimi's shirt floated open, cut cleanly from neck to hem. She slid the point between waistband and skin and slit downward to drop the trousers. Then, very gently, she touched the edge to his testicles.

"Careful,'s sharp," she giggled, watching the eyes grow enormous in the freckled face.

"In the southlands," she continued easily, "they'll pay more for a well-gelded boy. Gods alone know why! I've never cut a human, but with a horse or calf you make a slit here…"

She gripped him in one hand and prepared to slice.

Maihu closed her eyes and spoke rapidly, sweating. "We… found copper here, and a little gold. And ruins of the Old Ones; iron, still in the concrete, and other metals. The ingots are…"

"Good, good," Shkai'ra laughed. The Kommanz did not touch old buildings; there were few left, on the steppe. But forge fires would remove the death-curse that rotted your bones and made the hair fall out.

"If 'tis as you say, y' sprat here can keep his jewels. Wha you think, Eh'rik?"

The warmaster released Taimi, who sank to the floor, trembling.

"I think it's fortunate you made the band drink in relays, not all at once," he said dryly.

" 'Course," she said smugly. "Mus' have discipline. Strong discipline. Can' fight withou'

you have discipline. Look a' these steer-fuckers—got no discipline, so can' fight."

The level of the brandy was dropping fast. Shkai'ra walked backward into a chair and sat, cradling the bottle in her arms and feeling wonderful, letting the pleasant buzzing hum in her ears. Like bees in clover, she thought. Like bees in clover in the spring, by the river, lying watching the wild geese fly north.

My luck is tremendous
! she thought happily.
Better than the loot of ten caravans, and so
few losses
…

"Yo' wan' one to play with?" she asked Eh'rik expansively. "Boy's prettier, bottom like a peach, but't' dam is more inter-inter—" She slapped herself on the cheek. "Interesting."

She wet her lips and looked at the Minztans. Not like the thralls back home, who were too meek to be worth the effort. Rape was magic too, strong war-magic to take an enemy's strength. She had been taken a few times herself, of course; by older siblings between puberty and the time she could fight back effectively, by instructors, once or twice by a ranparent sober enough to catch her after a feast; and last year after a rustling party she rode on lost a skirmish with Buffalo Gorge Keep. That was fighting within the Bans, of course, against other Commands—Law said you had to surrender if surrounded, to keep too many of the People from being slain untimely. It was death-cursed to kill or cripple or torture a Lawful captive awaiting ransom, but nothing said you couldn't fuck them. She winced mentally; that had been
hideously
embarrassing.

He jerked a thumb toward Taimi. "Zoweitz carry off interesting, Chiefkin," he said. "I don't want to
talk
. I'll take that one."

"Otta gi' me first choice," she said, frowning with concentration. "On account takes longer an' harder for me."

"Blame Jaiwun Allmate for that, Chiefkin," he said, taking out his dicebox. "
It
made us male and female. High gets the choice?"

Shkai'ra paused in the difficult business of taking off her boots. She threw an eight and crowed with delight. It seemed she was victory-sure tonight.

"Throw again f both?" she asked, pulling her tunic over her head and rubbing her breasts.

Eh'rik hesitated, agreed, and lost again. "
Tuk't'hait whul-zhaitz
!" he swore. "Chief, throw away something you value. A run of luck like this makes the gods jealous!"

He glanced at the prisoners. "Don't untie the woman," he added thoughtfully.

"I'm drunk, no' stupid."

In the darkness, a figure moved between the silent halls of Newstead. Naked to the waist and barefoot, the shaman scarcely felt the savage cold of the midwinter night; training made it a simple matter to draw on the inner power to burn the body's reserves of fuel more rapidly. That was one reason the hide stretched so tight over bony ribs, hide scarred and patterned as thickly as his face, with runes graven by flint knives, or the marks where rawhide bands had been driven through flesh to support him as he hung from a tree.

As he loped he snuffled, now bending low, now thrusting his face upward toward the stars. Ceaselessly, his fingers thuttered on the drumhead slung from his waist. Senses scanned, many-leveled; there was nothing but the lingering stink of outland magic, soaked into the carven timbers around. He touched one wall gingerly, thinking with pleasure of the blaze of burning; the Chiefkin was an able killer, but soft, not to raze this place to the ground and give all the ones not useful to the gods. The council of
dhaik'tz
, the shamans, would hear of it…

Yet he remained uneasy. This had been too easy; so simple, to blind the Minztan sheep.

There had been no strong counterspell, barely a flicker of resistance. And he could detect nothing moving in the world beyond the world, thin though the Veil was here. He thought of the sack of skins in his saddlebags, wolf and glutton and otter… No, that was too dangerous, better to wait until there was need.

The guard had hardly sensed the shaman's approach; the sound of the drum had become too much part of the alien night. Warrior training strained familiar sounds out, to concentrate on the unusual; and the sound was comforting, here. At home a shaman was half feared and half despised. Amid the foreign buildings and the overshadowing trees, among so many hungry ghosts, it was well to have protection. Still, he started when the shadow of the bison-horn headdress fell across the snowdrift. Rising, he lowered the arrowhead and inclined his helmet.

"
Ztrateke ahkomman yh'e-mitchi
," the guard said formally: "Gods with you."

Inwardly, he shuddered at the other's near-nakedness; he knew himself for a hardy man, but even with full armor, padded undercoat, and wool cloak the cold drove knives into his joints. And even in this weather he could smell the rotting human meat and sour herbal stink on the man's breath.

"All goes well?" he continued politely.

The bare-chested man wrapped around himself arms of skin and knotted stringy muscle over bone.

"Witches," he muttered, reaching for the bag of dried fungus at his waist. With an effort, he stopped himself; too much could dull the wits. And the magic growth was rare and precious, traveling through a dozen hands from the deserts and mountains of the far southwest. He smiled up at the warrior, enjoying the man's fear. "Witches, powerful ones. I smell them."

Suddenly, he giggled and began to prance, beating out the time on his drum. "I will smell them out; then I can eat!" The homed shadow jerked away between the nightgray walls, the sound of the drum fading after him. The guard stared, spat, and resumed his pacing.

Shkai'ra kicked off the rest of her clothes, stretched, emptied the bottle, and tossed it into a corner. Naked, the fullness of her figure showed, and the hard flat sheaths of muscle that rolled over shoulders and stomach and back. There were faint scars on her left side and back, even fainter the stretch marks of childbirth on the ridged muscle of her belly.

She rubbed her breasts again as she walked over to the Minztan woman, pushed her onto the bed and examined the bindings: tight leather, no way to undo the knots.

"Wouldn' wan' have you bust my head while I come," she said, using the Minztan's belt to strap her hands tight to the headboard. "But y'can watch. You're next.

"You first," she continued, turning to Taimi. He came clumsily to his feet; she watched him, caressing her own breasts and then putting a hand between her legs.

The boy closed his eyes and staggered back as she pressed against him, flinching from her rank smell and the rough hands scraping over his body. She cut his bonds.

"Here," she said, extending her dagger hilt first. It was heavy in his hand, long, double-edged, the grip wound with rawhide. He looked at her warily.

"I'm drum—" She whistled, shook her head, and continued. "I'm drunk, an' unarmed. I killed your kin and sacked your village. If you don' stop me I'm going
to fuck you an'

your dam both. Come on, try an' loll me."

She weaved on her feet. Taimi felt rage welling up under his fear, like a cold bubble swelling up past his breastbone to burst in his throat, acid and bitter. With a shout he lunged, throwing his body behind the blade. A part of him knew he could not kill her, but he hoped against the odds to inflict some hurt.

She swayed aside; a palm edge cracked into his wrist, and the knife skittered off as his fingers flew open in reflex. The floor rushed to meet him as her shin swept his feet out from under him.

"Never
that
drunk," she said, standing over him and counting on her fingers, laboriously.

"Good, don't have to take tha' pig-piss potion the shamans make." She fell on him. They rolled over the furs grappling and straining as he tried to throw her off, she laughing and nuzzling at his face and neck and licking at his nipples. When he realized she was stronger and heavier, and enjoying herself wholeheartedly, he stopped and lay stiffly.

"Hmmmm," she murmured. Her hand groped downward, found his penis, began kneading rhythmically. She chuckled softly at the look on his averted face, remembering hands pulling her legs apart and the stinging pain. "You get it easier…"

"Come on, little stallion…
Ahi-a
, good." She bent and took him in her mouth, holding a wrist in each hand, savoring the familiar sensation. He began to sob quietly as he hardened.

Taimi lay tense but unresisting as she slid forward, drawing out the moment as she straddled his hips. She closed her eyes, feeling the rough fur under her knees, her hair plastered to the sweat on her back, the warm whole-body glow of anticipation. Then she enclosed him and began moving her pelvis steadily, her small panting grunts of effort mingling with his weeping as she clenched and relaxed. Unraveling, her red-blond hair fell across his face as she leaned forward on her elbows and rocked.

Maihu woke. For a moment she struggled with bewilderment, before memory returned.

The barbarian's weapon belt hung from the bedpost within reach… No, that would be playing into her hands. And even if she succeeded by some miracle, the revenge would kill her and her fellow villagers, slowly. A steppe savage might be content to kill and die for vengeance, but the Way of the Circle counseled patience, and justice… justice precise and exact. She took stock, using the lesser Litany to force calm. The bruise on her temple was still tender, but there was no blurred vision or dizziness that might mean serious trouble. For the rest, bruises and scrapes, a few bites and scratches, nothing too bad. She shuddered as she remembered the shaven-skulled animal who had almost gotten her.

The woman had been easier, rough but not out to cause pain as long as she was obeyed.

The customs of her people being what they were, the night past was simply an angering and humiliating episode of coercion rather than anything soul-searing. For a mature adult, at least, she thought. Taimi worried her. He was young, a gentle boy, almost a virgin. It was not good for the young to have one of the best things in life linked with hatred and pain.

Her lips quirked. She was assuming they had a future, other than as slaves in Stonefort.

Hugging her knees, she looked down on the Kommanza. She was lying on her face, arms curled around her head and her long hair bright against the brown linen of the mattress cover; the jagged paint on her face had run, smearing with sweat and drying in new patterns. Her
skin was very white where the sun and wind had not touched it, lightly dusted with freckles across the shoulders. There were scars there too, and all down her back to the buttocks in close-spaced rows. It took her a moment to realize, with horror, that they were whip scars. Old ones, and they must have been very deep.

Shkai'ra's eyes opened, pale mist-gray. Drilled reflex sent one hand out to touch the hilt of her saber. She saw the direction of her slave's gaze.

"I was a disobedient child," she said, and sat up. She winced, gripping her head between her hands. "Agggg, that brandy has a hit like Eh'mex Hammer of the gods!"

The door opened at her call, and a helmeted head looked in. Shkai'ra swung erect and clutched at a bedpost.

"Good light, Chiefkin," the guard said cheerfully. "Have you tried raw eggs?"

"Silence!" she growled, and winced again, frowning in concentration. "Wait—take this one out." She pointed to Tairm. "Get him some clothes, and put him to work. Tell the officer of the watch that he's mine." She considered. "Get me a bowl of milk. Hot. And some eggs, three."

Taimi rose uncertainly, still muzzy from exhausted sleep. Maihu helped him to the door, whispering in his ear. She doubted he heard: there was a disquieting blankness in his face.

The Kommanza threw herself into a series of exercises, starting slowly: tendon-stretching, knee bends, press-ups on her fingertips, palms, knuckles, one-handed. Rising, she went into the attack-defense patterns of
rh'Ukkul
, her people's fighting art. Whirling, blocking, stroking with palm edge and fist and feet against imaginary opponents, soon she was breathing deeply, the stiffness fading from her joints, and muscles moving and sliding freely under the skin. Her headache faded to a dull throb, and her stomach settled a little. Sweeping out her saber, she began a series of drills, single-hand cuts and thrusts and then the two-handed grip used for foot fighting without a shield. The warmasters claimed that the long blade was the most versatile of all weapons, combining the virtues of spear, lance, dagger, and ax.